Wednesday, 10 October 2012

Harecastle Tunnel

When we arrived at the South portal of Harecastle Tunnel this morning we had a short wait while 2 boats came through the other way.

It soon passed while I cleaned the windows and Chico taught Roger to play ball.

I started off on the back of the boat as we went into the tunnel, although I wasn't sure how long I'd be staying there and had dug the hoover out from under the bed just in case I bottled out and had to go inside.

Looking back, this is the fan control room. Once you're inside the tunnel they close the doors behind you and switch on the fans to suck all the exhaust fumes out.

It would have been good if they'd switched the fans on before we went into the tunnel as the first couple of hundred yards were really foggy and quite spooky.

Inside the tunnel the roof level varies quite considerably but you can tell where the low sections are because of fluorescent painted markers.

Some sections are very low and you need to duck right down

but others are quite high

About 500 yards before the North portal is this painted skeleton. Someone obviously had a good sense of humour!

I managed to stay on the back of the boat all the way through the tunnel. It was a lot less claustrophobic than I'd expected as we have a magnetic based work lamp that plugs into the 12V socket in the engine room and which illuminates the tunnel where you stand, rather than just relying on the tunnel light on the bow.

This was the North portal, the light at the end of the tunnel. It had taken us 35 minutes to get through and I really enjoyed it.